“So what are these dudes we’re chasing, these rogues? I mean they ain’t really rogues if they can change back to humans, right?”
It was Tick who asked the question. Nobody answered. Nico looked at Sebastian who shrugged his shoulders helplessly. Finally, Sebastian said, “We’ve never seen this before. By we, I mean the Wolves. It’s never even been heard of before.”
“Maybe we should figure out what we’re fighting before a whole bunch of folks get killed.” That was Nico, and his face was grim.
“Father, the Queen said something to me,” Cara said. “Something about legend…”
Nico held up one finger and said, “I already know what she told you. I can read it in your mind.”
“What the hell’s she talking about?” Sammy said. Neither Nico, Cara nor Sebastian missed the belligerence in the old biker’s voice. None of them blamed him for it, either.
Cara said softly, “The woman that was in that bed was the queen of our Tribe. Not just Tribe as in the bike club here, but the Tribe that has been around for centuries — longer, even. We’re not immortal or anything near it. Most people call us Gypsies, but we don’t really like that. Most people don’t know where we came from; we keep it that way on purpose because we made our own pack, years before the wolves came along.”
“In a way, we were the original outlaws, Sammy,” Nico said. “We were the original knights, and it was our sacred duty to protect the world from darkness.”
There was a long silence, then Dog spoke up. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?”
The ensuing laughter broke the tension and Cara found herself marveling at the resilience of these hardcase bikers. They just been confronted by the fact that they were being chased by the rogue werewolves, that the people that they rode with were descended from Gypsies, and they had shrugged it off like they shrugged off hot water and soap.
“I’m going to take Cara with me,” Sebastian said.
Nico glared. “I’m not allowing my daughter to go anywhere with you, Wolf.”
“I can protect her,” Sebastian said calmly.
“We can protect her far better than you,” Darva replied. “We don’t have to worry about her being betrayed while she is with us.”
“Can’t say that for sure. Ion is a traitor — who knows how many others there are?”
“You’ve got a point there,” Nico admitted, “but I’m still not entrusting you with my daughter.”
“I’m really getting a little sick of the two of you talking about me like I’m not even here,” Cara said.
Every head in the room turned to face her. She drew her shoulders up and said, “It’s not like I was raised to be afraid or weak. Besides, I’ve got magic, remember? It also seems that I’ve gotten pretty good at using it.”
“If I’d known that Ion was a traitor I would have let you finish burning him to death in the garage this morning,” Nico said. “He’d be missing a whole lot more than just an eyebrow right about now.”
Dog began to laugh. “Did you do that? I thought maybe he’d taken a tumble or something.”
“When did you ever see somebody hit concrete hard enough just to scrape off one eyebrow?” Sammy jeered.
“Hell, I’ve seen guys hit concrete hard enough to take off one leg of their pants and nothing else!”
A good-natured argument began to break out. It quickly degenerated into a series of stories of one-upmanship and the proud displaying of biker scars. Sebastian watched with amusement. It seemed that both true Tribe members and their hardcases were no different from the Fallen in many ways. That thought gave him pause. What if they weren’t really all that different? What if all the fighting and anger and resentment over the centuries had been for nothing?
He remembered a story that Cara had told him when they first met. She said that the Tribe had given the Wolves back their human shapes out of kindness, but that’s not the way he’d heard it. He’d always been taught that it was the Tribe who lowered the curse in the first place, who had created the first rogues.
Now was not the time to sort that out.
“The next guy that pulls down his pants and shows me his ass cheek is getting a kick in that cheek,” he said.
Sammy glared at him. “I guess you Fallen ain’t got no scars. Given that you guys ride like sissies.”
Sebastian cocked an eyebrow at him. “We could outrun you anytime, you old geezer.”
“Why don’t you try it, sonny?”
Nico interrupted. “Now is not the time to start banging each other’s club colors! If you’ve got beef, clear it up later. Right now, we’ve got to sort some shit out, because it sounds like we have mutual enemies here.”
Cara let out a long breath of relief. Her eyes went back to Sebastian and her heart gave a familiar squeeze. He had said he would protect her, and she believed him. But was his desire to protect her the same as caring about her?
She wished that she knew the answer; she wished he would tell her, but she knew that right now, here in this room full of hardcases and true Tribe members, was not the appropriate time or place to figure that out.
“Sebastian, you’re coming with us,” Nico decided. “It seems like the best solution. If you really want to protect my daughter, now’s your chance. You make one false move and I’ll fill you so full of silver, you’ll never be able to open a single eye ever again, do you understand?”
Dog added, “I’ve known that girl since she was a little thing. If you make one wrong move on her, I’ll run you down.”
Cara closed her eyes in exasperation. When she snapped them back open again, it was to see Sebastian looking at the men around him with an amused smile on his face. “I can accept every bit of that,” he said, and that was all.
Chapter 7
Nico was anxious. The entire Tribe was gathered in the living room of the Tribe house, watching the evening news. Sebastian stood near the doorway, his face was creased with worry. The blonde reporter standing in front of a burned-out house was speaking into a microphone with that bland professional horror in her voice that was meant to communicate she was a human and not a robot, although Sebastian often doubted that any reporter was human. He had known one who’d been a vampire, come to think of it.
“As you can see here behind me,” the reporter intoned, one slender hand indicating the burned building behind her, “The war between the two motorcycle gangs known as the Tribe and Fallen has escalated exponentially in the last few days. Police warn that the violence will only grow from here. I have with me today vice detective Mark Johnson.”
The camera cut to show the powerful-looking black-haired man that had come to the Queen’s house earlier that day. The reporter shoved her microphone under the detective’s nose. “Tell us all about the situation please Detective Johnson.”
Detective Johnson cleared his throat and said, “We’ve known for quite some time that we have two rival gangs here in our city. As the violence between the two has escalated, so has the damage to our citizens and to city property.”
“Man, that’s bullshit!” Sammy shouted. “We never burned down that damned building!”
“It would have eventually turned to violence, and you know it,” Sebastian said. “But this is not about drugs or money. This isn’t even about guns or power.”
“Then what the hell is it about?” Sammy said.
On the TV, Detective Johnson droned on and on. Cara stared at him; there was a deadliness in his eyes that she had not seen even in the hardest and most violent of men. Nico had said that a Hunter had a look about them; she shivered, certain that she had just figured out what he meant.
“It’s about who’s going to run the world,” Nico said. Sebastian looked at him, then looked away.
“The Tribe runs the city,” Sammy replied, glaring at Sebastian. “You can take your fucking rabid dog friends and get the hell out of here.”
“I wish it were that simple,” Sebastian said. “Unfortunately, I think that we have members of the Trib
e and the Fallen working together to create chaos. And once you get Hunters and cops and the public involved, it makes it a lot easier to take us down.”
“I hate to agree with a Wolf, but I believe he’s right on this one,” Nico said.
Sammy protested. “Oh come on! This dude is what, twenty? What the hell does he know?”
“Actually, I just turned two hundred and four,” Sebastian said.
Darva retorted, “Well, you just blew your chance at Cara. You’re way too old for her.”
Dog began to laugh. “Hey, in the movies them old vampires always go after the young chicks. Haven’t you ever watched Twilight?”
Tick glared at him. “I love that series.”
“I always knew you were a little soft in the head,” Sammy said.
An argument broke out and Cara decided to end it. She clapped her hands together hard and a spray of ice shot upward and hit the ceiling. Everyone in the room, including Sebastian, stared upward at the icicles dangling from the ceiling fans.
“One more word that doesn’t have anything to do with our current situation and those icicles are going to fall. I think they’re pretty sharp.” The threat in her voice was clear.
There was some muttering but it subsided. Cara looked back at the television. The detective had finished speaking; now the reporter had the mic back and she was speaking in that hushed, synthetically sympathetic voice again.
“It’s obvious that these two gangs must be stopped. These lawless men who are attempting to swamp our fair city with drugs and violence must not be allowed to continue on that path.”
“She must not be from around here,” Dog muttered. “Drugs and violence are what New Orleans is all about. It’s part of our heritage, dammit.”
Nico said, “Well, that settles it. We’ve got to figure out who these traitors within our midst are and deal with them. Otherwise, this is just going to get worse.”
“It’s a brilliant plan,” Sebastian said. “While the humans are trying to get rid of what they think are just regular biker gangs, the traitors get to help decimate us from the outside and the inside.”
“Yep,” Sammy said. “They’re thinning the ranks. It’s how they used to get us back in Vietnam too. We’d get these people that said they wanted to help and the next thing you know, they’d planted bombs right in the middle of our tents.”
“How do we know if anyone in this room right now is one of the traitors?” Darva asked.
Nico turned to Cara and said, “Daughter, it’s time for you to start using your powers the way you are intended to. It’s time to start using it to help your people.”
Help people do what? Cara looked at her father and she looked at the floor. She knew that many of the men who rode with the Tribe were good men; despite their past and their willingness to commit crimes, most of them had good souls underneath it all. But that did not excuse the fact that they were criminals. And that was the main problem for her.
“You should know what I want out of my own life. I love you and I want to help my people but I don’t want to be Queen.”
Sebastian’s hand came up and rested on her shoulder. Cara had not known how rigid her muscles were until he touched her and they all relaxed. How could he do that? How could he make her feel like everything would be okay with just a single touch?
“We are only what are fate decrees, Cara,” Nico said. “If I could spare you from this, I would, but I can’t. I prayed for a son; I did simply because I knew what it would it be like for you if you had to take this on. Your mother and I both knew that you would be Queen one day. From the moment you were born your power was so visible, and so strong. It’s only grown. Nobody ever tried to teach you how to use it because nobody knew how. Nobody tried to help you hold it because there’s no way to hold something so natural and so wild. The power more immense than anyone has ever seen. None of us know how to help you.
“That’s my biggest failing as a father, and I hope one day you’ll forgive me. I will completely understand if you don’t. I’m so sorry, but I can’t release you from your destiny. Nobody can do that. You are to be Queen, unless there is one who is more powerful than you. But we all know that there isn’t.”
Tears leaked down Cara’s face. “I don’t want it.”
Nico said, “I know.”
“I don’t even know how to use my power. Like you said nobody ever taught me. I don’t know what I can do, and I don’t how to stop doing what I do. I set Ion on fire, for God’s sake!”
One of the icicles broke from the ceiling fan and hit her right in the middle of her own head. Cara yelped in pain and rubbed the crown of her head. More icicles started to fall, and everybody began to duck and cover. By the time the last of those dangerous little spikes had hit the floor, Cara was sobbing.
Sebastian didn’t even think about it. He went to her and held her in his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder wrapped her arms around him. He’d been going to tell her earlier that she smelled of toasted almonds and sugar. That was her natural smell. He didn’t think he’d ever met a woman who smelled so incredibly good.
He looked over her head and caught sight of her father’s face. Nico was frowning heavily and there was concern and fear written deeply in his expression. Sebastian knew that was more to all of this, but he wasn’t sure what it was.
How many legends had been lost? How much of the past had been hidden and forgotten? People often distorted history for their own purpose. Maybe the Fallen and the Tribe had long since forgotten the truth behind their animosity toward each other.
Cara continued to sob. Her slender body was wracked by her cries and Sebastian’s heart was breaking for her.
Her father said it was her destiny and there was no way to avoid it. Perhaps that was true. Destiny was said to be a wheel that spun continuously and without care for the people caught in its cogs. Nobody had ever called destiny kind.
He understood exactly how she felt. He’d never wanted to hunt rogues. He’d never wanted to kill people that he’d known, loved and cared for. He’d never wanted to be the one who brought death. When his uncle had come to him and bestowed the silver knife upon him, he’d known there was no way to fight it. His uncle had told him that night that killing rogues was his destiny.
Cara broke away from him and ran up the stairs. Her feet pounded on those steps and he stared after her. None of the men in the room spoke. All of them knew that she was not the kind of woman to give in to tears often or easily.
The other women in the house had left earlier to go and meet the families that were trickling in slowly but surely. Nico knew that they were out preparing a site for tonight’s dance.
He looked over at Sebastian. “Don’t just stand there — go up there and see if you can’t quiet her down.”
Sebastian knew that Nico had just given him a blessing. It wasn’t a blessing that would last forever; it couldn’t be. A Wolf and a member of the Tribe could never be together. There were laws and rules, and no matter how or why they’d been set forth, right now, the two were at war, not only with themselves but with the outside world.
But Nico had just given Sebastian his blessing, temporary and fleeting as it was, because he knew that after tonight, whatever there was between his daughter and this Wolf could never be again, and he could not bear to be the one to take it from her before then.
CHAPTER 8
Cara ran into her room and flung herself on the bed, dislodging many of the garments that had been laid out for her inspection. Something on this bed would be what she wore later tonight as she danced in the sacred circle.
Angry and heartbroken, she snatched up a thin, silvery scarf. Small coins dangled from the center of it. She wanted to rip it into shreds, tear it until it was as tattered and torn as she felt. But she could not — it had belonged to her mother.
Clutching the pretty scarf close to her heart, she rolled over onto her belly and sobbed violently. She was only nineteen — why couldn’t anyone see that? She wanted a
life that she carved out for herself — not a life that people insisted that destiny had decreed would be hers.
How could that be fair? How could there be just one outcome for someone’s life? If that were so, it would mean that her mother had been destined to die by the teeth and claws of a rogue; she just couldn’t believe that destiny would give anyone that ending.
Nor could she believed that destiny would be so cruel as to force a husband like Nico to have to remove his own wife’s head. Cara knew how much her parents had loved each other, and she knew her father had never taken another mate because none could compare to the love he felt for her mother.
There was a knock on the door and she buried her face in her pillows, trying to wipe the tears away from her cheeks. “Come in,” she said in a muffled voice. It wouldn’t do any good to tell whoever was out there to stay out; they would not listen. She refused to roll over; she just lay there with her face in the wet pillows and her body sinking into the soft feather mattress.
Surrender (The Tribe MC: Chase of Prey Book 2) Page 6
